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Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 animated film, originally released on January 29, 1959 by Disney. The film was directed by Les Clark, Eric Larson, and Wolfgang Reitherman. The script was adapted from the French fairy tale by Charles Perrault by Erdman Penner, with additional story work by Joe Rinaldi, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Ralph Wright, and Milt Banta. The film's musical score and songs, featuring the work of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in Germany, composed by George Bruns. Plot synopsis Princess Aurora is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn "because she fills her father and mother's lives with sunshine." While still an infant, she is betrothed to the also-young Prince Phillip. At her christening, the good fairies Flora (dressed in red), Fauna (in green), and Merryweather (in blue) arrive to bless her. Flora gives her the gift of beauty, which is described in a song as "gold of sunshine in her hair" and "lips that shame the red, red rose." Fauna gives her the gift of song. At this point, Maleficent, the film's villain and mistress of all evil, appears on the scene. Claiming to be upset at not being invited to the baby shower, she curses the princess to die when she touches a spinning wheel's spindle before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday. Fortunately, Merryweather has not yet blessed Aurora, so she uses her blessing to change Maleficent's curse, so Aurora will not die when she touches the spinning wheel; instead, she will fall asleep until she is awakened by her true love's kiss. Knowing Maleficent is extremely powerful and will stop at nothing to see her curse fulfilled, the three good fairies take Aurora to live with them in the woods, where they can keep her safe from any harm until she turns sixteen and the curse is made void. To fully protect her, they even change her name to Briar Rose. Rose grows into a very beautiful woman, with shining blond hair, rose-red lips, and a beautiful singing voice. She is raised in a cottage in the forest by the three fairies, whom she believes are her aunts. One day, while out picking berries, she sings to entertain her animal friends; her angelic voice gains the attention of Prince Phillip, who has grown into a handsome young man and is out riding in the woods. When they meet, they instantly fall in love. Realizing that she has to return home, Aurora flees from Phillip without ever learning his name. Despite promising to meet him again, she is unable to return, as her "aunts" choose that time to reveal the truth of her birth to her and to tell her that she is betrothed to a prince named Phillip. Meanwhile, back in the castle, Stefan and Hubert were discussing the future plans about Aurora and Phillip, who later came and see his father to say about the girl he will be marrying (much to his father´s anger). Later, Aurora and the fairies return to the castle and leave her alone in the room to wait for her birthday celebrations and will see her parents. However, Maleficent appears and lures Aurora away from the fairies by touching the spindle of the spinning wheel. Then the fairies placed her on a bed and placed a powerful spell on everyone to sleep. While putting everyone to sleep, Flora overhear Hubert saying that Phillip will marry a peasant girl, making them realize that the man Aurora met in the forest was really Prince Phillip, So they went back to the cottage, but arrived too late since Maleficent and her goons captured Phillip. The fairies decided to rescue him. So they went to the Forbidden Mountains and free Phillip, arming him with a magical shield and sword to fight the battle forces of evil. Upon seeing Phillip escaping, Maleficent tries to stop him with thorns, but fails. This cause her to tranform herself into a dragon. Phillip throws the sword at Maleficent, killing her. Phillip arrives at the castle and awakens Aurora with a kiss, breaking the spell that caused everyone, including Stefan, the queen, and Hubert, to wake up. The couple descends to a ballroom, where they reunite their parents. As Phillip and Aurora dances, Flora and Merryweather argue again about the color dress while Fauna was crying with happiness. Production Overview and art direction Warner Bros. artist Eyvind Earle was the film's production designer, and Warner Bros. gave him a significant amount of freedom in designing the settings and selecting colors for the film. Earle also painted the majority of the backgrounds himself. The elaborate paintings usually took seven to ten days to paint; by contrast, a typical animation background took only one workday to complete. Warner Bros.'s decision to give Earle so much artistic freedom was not popular among the Warner Bros. animators, who had until Sleeping Beauty exercised some influence over the style of their characters and settings. Characters and story development The name of the beautiful Sleeping Beauty is "Princess Aurora" (Latin for "dawn"), in this film, as it was in the Tchaikovsky ballet; this name occurred in Perrault's version, not as the princess's name, but as her daughter's. In hiding, she is called Briar Rose, the name of the princess in the Brothers Grimm variant. The prince was given the only princely name familiar to Americans in the 1950s: "Prince Phillip", after the British prince. The dark fairy was aptly named Maleficent (which means "Evil-doer"). Princess Aurora's long, thin, willowy body shape was inspired by that of Audrey Hepburn. In addition, Warner Bros. had suggested that all three fairies should look alike. Additionally, the idea originally included seven fairies instead of three. In determining Maleficent's design, standard depictions of witches and hags were dismissed as animator Marc Davis opted for a more elegant look centered around the appearance of flames, ultimately crowning the villain with "the horns of the devil." Many so-called "feminists" hate Aurora and consider her part of the "Non-Independent Damsels Who Need A Prince's Aid" group, despite being sheltered away most of her life and being in "distress" for only the first 10 minutes before Merryweather changes the death into a coma. Apparently, Disney wanted to make Aurora sound posh, so they decided to give her a British accent. Due to this, people often think she is from Britain. Others are ignorant and think it's based on the Grimm version or the very first version (from Italy), and call Aurora German or Italian. Category:Miscellaneous Category:Movies Category:Disney movies Category:Films set in France Category:Disney Princess Films Category:Princess films Category:Animated films Category:Hand-drawn films Category:American films Category:1950s films Category:Films based on fairytales Category:Musicals